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Physical Review A

Numerical simulations of atomic decay in cavities and material media

Vladimír Bužek, G. Drobný, Min Gyu Kim, Martti Havukainen, P. L. Knight

Published Jul 1, 1999• 58 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Starting from first principles we simulate numerically the dynamics of a system of two-level atoms interacting with a multimode electromagnetic field in a one-dimensional cavity. In particular, we investigate the spontaneous emission of an excited two-level atom in the cavity. We show how the decay depends on the mode spectrum and on the position of the atom in the cavity. We study how the spontaneous emission is modified when the initially excited atom is surrounded by a material medium modeled as a system of two-level atoms. We also study the propagation of photon wave packets emitted by the atom within the material media. Our microscopic model provides us with a deeper understanding of the atom-field interaction and offers us a framework for a systematic investigation of the transition from a microscopic to a macroscopic (phenomenological) description of the spontaneous decay in material media (e.g., dielectrics).

DOI
10.1103/physreva.60.582

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Starting from first principles we simulate numerically the dynamics of a system of two-level atoms interacting with a multimode electromagnetic field in a one-dimensional cavity. In particular, we investigate the spontaneous emission of an excited two-level atom in the cavity. We show how the decay depends on the mode spectrum and on the position of the atom in the cavity. We study how the spontaneous emission is modified when the initially excited atom is surrounded by a material medium modeled as a system of two-level atoms. We also study the propagation of photon wave packets emitted by the atom within the material media. Our microscopic model provides us with a deeper understanding of the atom-field interaction and offers us a framework for a systematic investigation of the transition from a microscopic to a macroscopic (phenomenological) description of the spontaneous decay in material media (e.g., dielectrics).
In this chapter, the authors develop a consistent theory of spontaneous emission in an optical micro cavity from a broadened atom. They derive the atomic broadening from first principles by assuming the presence of reservoirs coupled to the atoms. The simplest model of the atom is the so-called two-level atom, which has only two energy levels, the excited and the ground level. However, realistic atoms are surrounded by media that affect the atoms, giving them homogeneous or inhomogeneous broadening. The important parameter of coupling ratio of spontaneous emission to a desired quasi mode cannot be exactly treated by the present mathematical model of the cavity, although it is easily seen qualitatively that the ratio will decrease with increasing atomic broadening. The authors assume that each atom emits independently and ignored the possible interaction among atoms during spontaneous emission. Solving the master equation for the density matrix elements, the readers have derived formulas for spontaneous emission rate and emission spectrum.
We present a numerical and analytical study of a multimode Jaynes-Cummings model describing the spontaneous decay of a single atom in a high-Q cavity. The theory of cavity-modified spontaneous emission is discussed in terms of quantities that have clear physical interpretations: the photon wave packet radiated by the atom, its reflection by the cavity boundaries, and its reabsorption by the atom. Multimode corrections to the single-mode Jaynes-Cummings model are calculated. The multimode corrections are formulated in terms of quantities that may be calculated by solving the single-mode equations of motion.
We investigate spontaneous photon emission processes of two-level atoms in parabolic and ellipsoidal cavities thereby taking into account the full multimode scenario. In particular, we calculate the excitation probabilities of the atoms and the energy density of the resulting few-photon electromagnetic radiation field by using semiclassical methods for the description of the multimode scenario. Based on this approach photon path representations are developed for relevant transition probability amplitudes which are valid in the optical frequency regime where the dipole and the rotating-wave approximations apply. Comparisons with numerical results demonstrate the quality of these semiclassical results even in cases in which the wave length of a spontaneously emitted photon becomes comparable or even larger than characteristic length scales of the cavity. This is the dynamical regime in which diffraction effects become important so that geometric optical considerations are typically not applicable.
We revisit the problem of spontaneous emission by a two-level system in a cavity, concentrating in particular on those aspects associated with the finite propagation time of light between the atom and the cavity boundaries. We find that spontaneous emission always occurs first at the free space rate and there is then an abrupt change in these dynamics when light reflected by the cavity mirrors returns to the atom, leading to interference effects that result either in an enhancement or a reduction of this rate or in a periodic exchange of excitation between the atom and the cavity field. From this point of view, reversible spontaneous emission in terms of single-mode ``vacuum Rabi oscillations'' can be interpreted as resulting from the interference between the multimode partial waves reflected at the cavity mirrors and the instantaneously radiated light. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
Quantum mechanical treatment of light inside dielectric media is important to understand the behavior of an optical system. In this paper, a two-level atom embedded in a rectangular waveguide surrounded by a perfect electric conductor is considered. Spontaneous emission, propagation, and detection of a photon are described by the second quantization formalism. The quantized modes for light are divided into two types: photonic propagating modes and localized modes with exponential decay along the direction of waveguide. Though spontaneous emission depends on all possible modes including the localized modes, detection far from the source only depends on the propagating modes. This discrepancy of dynamical behaviors gives two different decay rates along space and time in the correlation function of the photon detection.